First of all, thank you for your replies. Sometimes when I read the posts on this forum I feel so ignorant about my SLK230 (1998). I took the car to a nearby Mercedes dealership this morning and the roof worked fine for them. That was frustrating. I had tried it off and on all weekend, but, naturally, it failed to "not preform" for the mechanic.

They did a diagnosis of the car's system and a code B1493 popped up regarding the "output or lead of component N70h1 (Soft top operation and locking gong) has" etc. I can't type the symbols. The status is "current and stored". They said this is cause for concern, but didn't say why. They were shocked about how many codes popped up--three pages. I will have to leave the car there to have all of them looked at, but couldn't leave it today. Since I only had the roof issue at this time and it apparently is working I paid the $85 diagnostic fee and left. Now I am worried about driving the car out of town.